Requiem for Moses

by William Kienzle

  “Are you serious!?” Bill was incredulous. “You’re talking about murder—or conspiracy to commit murder. You can’t be serious!”

  “You want to marry me?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “You want to see your career end up in the toilet?”

  “Of course not.”

  “You got any other way out of this fine dilemma?”

  Bill pondered.

  “No … but …”

  “Then we have to plan.”

  “I say we take out a contract on him,” David offered.

  “A contract!” Bill was still fumbling with the fact that he had suddenly become part of a homicidal conspiracy.

  “Da- vid!” Judith was exasperated. “You’ve been seeing too many movies. How many killers for hire do you know? Or should I call them ‘hit men’ for the benefit of you and your film buddies?”

  “Well …” David’s train of thought quickly ran out of steam.

  “I can’t believe this!” Bill said.

  Judith ignored him completely. “No! We do not hire anybody.”

  “We don’t hire …?”

  “You heard me. Now, with three, this shouldn’t be so difficult. We have to get Mother out of the way.”

  “We have to kill Mother?!” David was truly horrified.

  “No, idiot! We get her out of the apartment. That should be easy for you, Bill; she likes you.”

  “I don’t know ….” Bill demurred.

  “I do! And that will give David and me a chance to get into the apartment.”

  “I haven’t got a key. Have you?”

  “No. We don’t need one. Don’t you remember, Davie: There’s only one lock and no dead bolt. We can trip the lock with a simple strip of hard plastic.”

  “Good God!” David exclaimed. “So we can get in. You make it seem so simple. What the hell would we do? I mean, you’re actually talking about murder. What do you want me to do, strangle my own father?!” He paused. “Up till now, this sounded like one of those crazy daydreams. This is the first time I’ve gotten serious about this. I really don’t think I’m able to … I mean, I can’t kill anybody, let alone my own father.”

  “Don’t be so emotional, David. It won’t be anything gross like strangling him. We can just give him some pills. The only thing we’ve got to be careful about is that he gets enough to do the job. This time he’s gotta be dead—really dead.”

  “This is insane,” Bill said.

  “Fine!” Judith threw up her hands in disgust. “Davie, you can find out what it’s like to start a professional career with no money for even a diploma to hang up. And you can be a lackey for your father for the foreseeable future—that’s all Daddy’s promises are worth.

  “And Bill, you can marry me and watch your future become part of your past.

  “Both of you can crumble before Daddy. But I’m not going to.”

  Silence fell as all three sat, thinking their own thoughts.

  Judith knew this had to be done, even if she had to do it herself.

  This time, it’s got to work.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  The hardest part of the night shift at a gas station was fighting boredom. Especially was this true for Stan Lacki.

  The job was as easy as rolling off a log. And as interesting as watching paint dry or grass grow.

  All he had to do was sit in the cashier’s booth, take money and make change. Ultrastrong Plexiglas surrounded him. Theoretically, it was bullet-proof.

  Stan knew bullet-proof meant that certain bullets couldn’t penetrate the enclosure. He also knew certain other bullets could penetrate just about anything. Every time someone came up with an impervious substance, someone else would be challenged to invent a projectile that would do the job.

  But the manager of this service station had a healthy policy aimed at protecting the employees first and foremost: If someone points a gun, give the money. Don’t rely on the glass. Don’t rely on anything—a passing police car, an involved citizen, nothing. Give the money.

  The bullet-proof pane? A deterrent only to the easily discouraged robber.

  For Stan this was like caging a wild bird. Stan was an auto mechanic. The best, he thought—a thought shared by a growing number of customers. Word had it that Stan Lacki was an excellent technician, honest, and as caring for the customer’s car as he was for his own.

  Business at that station was booming. And the steady increase could be laid directly at the door of Stan Lacki.

  Putting Stan on night duty was like hiring Michelangelo to paint a house. It made no use of a great talent.

  A car full of teenagers pulled up to a pump. The driver staggered out of the car—a rusted-out bag of nuts and bolts. It took several tries for him to get the pump into his gas tank. Stan watched the procedure. If this was the best any of the males in that car could do, the girls in the car were going to be pretty safe tonight.

  Finally, after spilling a little less than a gallon, the inept one managed to get the pump turned off and the nozzle replaced in the notch.

  The tab was $7.57. The driver, a kid of maybe seventeen, pushed a twenty-dollar bill through the slot. As he lurched off, some of the change slipped through his fingers onto the ground. He didn’t stop to pick it up, but continued on his uneven way back to the car as if traversing a giant slalom.

  Rich kids, thought Stan, as the driver laid rubber pulling out of the station. Their parents probably give them everything they want. Even before they ask for it.

  But that driver! There was a probable fatality in his future. And, more than likely, he would take his friends with him.

  Parents and kids. Stan was reminded that he and Claire would never be parents.

  Rough on him. He’d dreamed of having a son, playing with him, watching him grow, adored by his mother. Stan would have the boy up to his elbows in axle grease. His mother wouldn’t like that. But she’d put up with it. Because Stan was making their boy into another Stan Lacki. And the world needed all of those it could get.

  Or maybe the firstborn would have been a girl. That would have been all right, too. Stan could have waited for his little man. Meanwhile, he could have watched with love as their girl grew up to be a beauty like Claire.

  His eyes began to tear. He wiped them dry as another car pulled in. He waited to see which pump it would stop at. But the car pulled up to the garage. The driver, a young woman, got out of the car and approached his booth.

  She was twenty-some. She wore a red beret over long, straight blonde hair. Her outfit was a camouflage jacket over a very short denim skirt. Black mesh stockings did not quite reach her skirt. In contrast to all this, her face was soft and innocent-looking. As she neared his cubicle, Stan could see that her skin was almost alabaster white and she wore decidedly too much lipstick.

  The round hole in the cashier’s window tended to measure the customer. Most people were too tall to speak directly into the hole; they stooped. This customer stood on tiptoe, but did not speak up as the majority did. That made it difficult for Stan to hear her. He leaned forward and turned his head slightly.

  “Mister, I got trouble with my car.”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “It’s leaking.”

  Stan twisted to look at the car. From this distance and angle it was difficult to get a good view. But he could see a small, dark puddle forming under the front of the car.

  “I guess you’re right. Your car seems to have a leak okay … maybe an oil leak.”

  “Can you fix it?”

  “Probably. But not till tomorrow. I gotta stay in here.”

  Her face pinched together. She looked on the verge of tears. “Please, mister,” she begged. “I gotta get to the other side of town. It’s late. I’m afraid I’m gonna get stuck on the freeway. And then what?”

  And then what indeed. Stan could anticipate the story buried inside the paper. One more in an endless number of victims of violence.

  The leak would take its
toll. The car would cough. Lights on the dashboard would warn to stop for repair. She would pull over to the shoulder. Someone else would pull over. A good Samaritan … or a beast? Stan well knew the odds favored deep trouble. And this little lady would be found assaulted—or dead.

  Still, this was his cocoon. He was safe—or as safe as the crazies out there would let him be. As long as he didn’t open the door. As long as he stayed inside. As long as a robber would settle for money.

  He’d never thought of it this way before. The few times he’d drawn the night shift, he’d never really adverted to the protection this enclosure provided. But he’d never been in exactly this predicament.

  “Please, mister,” she pleaded. “I’d offer you a lot of money, but I only got a few bucks. You can have it all if you’ll help me.” She dug out her wallet and fingered through it. She held a handful of dollar bills up to the window. “Eight dollars,” she said, “and some change.”

  He looked at her—and saw Claire. What if it were Claire? Well, it wouldn’t be Claire. He would have seen to it that any car Claire drove would be in dependable working order.

  But she might be in some other kind of fix. He would want whoever she asked for help to give it. “Okay. Let’s take a look at it.” And he left his cocoon.

  They walked together to her car. It was a ’90 Mercury Grand Marquis, a big, heavy sucker. She was right about one thing: It had a leak.

  The garage had three bays. Two of them had hoists; both held cars that needed repair. Both cars had come in before Stan’s regular shift ended. He had put them on the hoists so he could work on them first thing tomorrow.

  So he didn’t have an empty hoist. No problem; he’d use the hydraulic floor jack.

  “Maybe you can plug the leak?” she said hopefully.

  “Yeah,” he said, “stick a cork in it.”

  “Yeah.” She was agreeable.

  “You’ll have to pull it in there,” he said, gesturing toward the empty bay.

  “Okay.” She got into the car and drove forward slowly, as he stood at the far wall, motioning her on in. Finally, he signaled for her to stop. She got out of the car and stood to one side as he grabbed the jack, placed it carefully under the car’s front end, adjusted it, and pumped the car well off the floor.

  She watched as he kicked the creeper from its place against the wall. He lay on his back on the creeper and kicked his way under the car from the front. He located the leak immediately, just as she grasped the handle in the base of the jack and turned it counterclockwise. The jack collapsed along with the full weight of the huge car.

  Stan made no sound. He was dead.

  She took a small jar of oil from her jacket pocket. She poured the oil onto the base of the jack handle. Then she checked to make sure the car was free of the jack. It was—barely.

  She got in the car, started the engine and put it in reverse. But Stan’s body on the creeper was wedged against the underside. She gunned the engine, and in a moment the car almost exploded out of the bay, leaving what was left of Stan Lacki in a mangled heap. She drove two blocks away, where she was picked up. The Mercury was left abandoned, slowly dripping oil.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  The phone sounded. She picked it up on the second ring. “Yes?”

  “Miss Lennon?”

  “Yes. Who’s this?”

  “Claire … Claire McNern.”

  Lennon squinted at the clock on her nightstand. Five A.M. “It’s five in the morning, Claire.”

  “I know. And I’m sorry. I just got a call from the station manager. Something’s happened to Stan.”

  Lennon tried to shake off her drowsiness. Okay, something’s happened to Stan Lacki. At this predawn hour, she barely remembered Claire McNern and Stan Lacki. She had interviewed both of them for the Moses Green story. So if something had happened to Stan, why didn’t Claire go there, wherever that was? Why call me?

  “Stan towed my car to the station to fix it. So I haven’t got wheels. I know you’re wondering why I don’t call a cab … why I’m calling you. It’s because you’re the first—the only one—I could think of. I don’t know what’s happened to Stan. They wouldn’t tell me. You were so nice when you interviewed us, I thought … maybe …”

  Her mind now clear, Lennon sensed the panic in Claire’s voice. She was fearful of what she’d find at the station. And she wanted a friendly shoulder with her. A shoulder she was not likely to find in either a cabbie or the police. “I’ll be right over.”

  There was little or no traffic at that hour; they made it from Claire’s apartment to the service station in record time.

  It was a familiar scene to Lennon, something out of the movies for Claire. Most striking were the flashing lights atop police vehicles and rescue wagons. From the sheer number of vehicles on the scene, Lennon feared the worst. “Claire, wait in the car. I’ll go see what’s—”

  But Claire was already out of the car and running to the spot where everyone had gathered. She saw the body bag, and instantly she knew.

  Impulsively she moved toward the bag. The station manager caught her in his arms before she could reach it. “Claire, you don’t want to see that!”

  There could be no doubt: Stan was in the bag. The blood seemed to drain from her head as she collapsed. The manager held her and yelled for help. Instantly, two EMS people were at her side. They put her on a gurney and began to minister to her.

  Having assured herself that Claire was being cared for, Lennon’s reportorial instincts took over. The ranking officer on the scene was Sergeant Mangiapane, the lone representative from Homicide. “Hi, Phil. What’s going on here?”

  “Oh, hi, Pat.” She had startled him; his attention had been focused on the fainting woman. “It looks like an accident. Let me get the boss over here.” Mangiapane beckoned to the manager.

  The manager clearly was shaken. “Check me now,” Mangiapane said. “Lacki was alone at the station. Right?”

  The manager nodded. He was thinking of many things, not the least of which was what to do about Stan’s fiancée.

  “And your rule is that a lone man on duty doesn’t leave the booth for any reason. Right? But you said …”

  “Stan didn’t pull this duty very often,” the manager explained. “One of the reasons I don’t tap him much is he’s too valuable on days. Hell of a mechanic. The other reason is because he’s too softhearted. Of all the guys who work here, Stan’d be most likely to leave the booth and help somebody. That’s what must’ve happened ….”

  “It’s pretty clear what happened, Pat,” Mangiapane said. “Somebody must’ve talked him into leaving the booth to look at a car … like he just said.

  “Well, the two hoists are occupied, as you can see. So he used the creeper—uh, that’s the metal slide over there. He must’ve lifted the car and slid under it and the damn jack broke. When the jack fell, so did the car. It crushed just about everything. Lacki was a big guy. Big in the chest. The medics say it probably crushed the aorta, maybe the heart too.”

  “When did it happen?”

  “We don’t know yet. We’re checking that out. The M.E. will rule on that eventually. God knows how many people came in here for gas. Some of them might’ve seen Lacki. After all, the car that was on the jack is gone.”

  “So what happened to it?”

  “Dunno. Maybe the guy panicked and drove away. Maybe he’ll come forward when he finds out we don’t want to arrest him … at least not on what we got now.”

  “What makes you think the jack failed?”

  “See,” the manager volunteered, “that oil leak at the base of the pipe—the handle? The handle—that’s what failed. Stan got the car off the ground with the hydraulic floor jack. Then he shoulda put a stand or two under the frame. But that’s Stan—no goddam jack was gonna fail on him. Well,” he shook his head, “this one did!”

  “Like I said,” Mangiapane repeated, “it looks like an accident.”

  “Yeah …” Lennon said meditative
ly. “There’s one thing more. I just interviewed him about the Green case. Kind of a coincidence, don’t you think? Kind of spooky.”

  Mangiapane’s face lit up. “Hey, so did I. Is that weird, or what?”

  “That’s weird.” On impulse, Lennon took down the license numbers of the two cars on the hoists. Then she looked back. Claire was sitting up on the gurney. Everyone was giving reasons why it would be better if she didn’t look at Stan just now. It would be better after the undertaker fixed things up.…

  “I want to give her a lift home,” Lennon said to the manager. “She told me Stan was fixing her car.”

  “Yeah, it’s finished.”

  “So could you get it to her later today?”

  “Be glad to. Anything else I can do?”

  “Be there if she needs you.”

  “Sure thing.”

  By the time Lennon reached the gurney, Claire was standing, somewhat shakily. Lennon held her for an extended time. Tremors passed through Claire’s body.

  “It was fast,” Lennon whispered in Claire’s ear. “Instantaneous. He never knew.”

  Lennon wondered whether supportive statements like these did any good at a time of great grief. Probably nothing would suffice. But holding and trying to reassure Claire was all Pat could do. That and drive her home.

  Little was said during that trip. At first, Pat thought Claire was mumbling, rambling. Then she realized what Claire seemed to be repeating was, “Not machinery. Not tools. They couldn’t hurt Stan. Nothing like that could hurt Stan.”

  It was so pitiful.

  “Would you like me to stay with you for a while?” Pat asked, as they pulled up in front of Claire’s apartment.

  “I’ve taken enough of your time. It was awfully nice of you to drive me.”

  “It’s okay. I’ve got some time. Maybe I could stay with you until someone else comes ….”

  “No, thanks a lot. But, no. I’d rather be alone. To be honest, I think I’m gonna break down. I’d rather do it alone.”